Your children say....

As many people know I work in a restaurant as a server, not a very glamorous job, but one that I love because of my interaction with people. Also, the type of restaurant I work at plays a very big part of it as well. If enjoy the people at a table, I am encourage to pull up a chair and talk with them, create a personal bond, and get to know them on an individual basis. I had the opportunity to do this with a family a few days ago.

Their party had 5 of them in total, grandma was there with them, a young couple in their late 20's, and 2 little girls. One was 5, the other 4. Both girls were absolutely gorgeous, but the 4 year old sticks out in my mind. Her smile never slipped from her face, even as her spaghetti hit the floor (although my smile faltered at this point), as she spilled her sticky Shirley Temple (sprite and cherry flavoring for people in UT) all over the table and booth, (still struggling to keep my smile up) and lastly as she flings ice cream at her grandma sitting at the other side of the table (I have to laugh at this as it really pisses grandma off), but this little girl is so special and her smile makes me want to pick her up and take her home with me! This little girl has down syndrome.

One of my gifts that I appreciate several times daily is my ability to relate to others so well, that in normal conversation they open up to me (sometimes not such a great thing.) In our conversing it came to their little girls, the young couple had been married for about 2 years when they got pregnant, they were at a point where it would be ok, and they would deal if they had a child, but not at the ideal point to start a family. They had her, and she was perfect, but they were really struggling financially with the hospital bills and everything when they got pregnant again. This scared them both quite a bit. A few weeks later, newborn in tow, going into the dr., they found something not right in all the testing. The baby would be born with down syndrome. This was almost too much for the young couple. The pregnancy was just a few short weeks in and all the options were open to them including termination. At such a young age (the parents) and having such a young baby, not many would point a finger at them for doing this, however they did not terminate the pregnancy. They decided to have the baby and she is now 4 years old. She is absolutely adorable and everyone around her finds joy.

Many people in the world seriously consider these options when they are made aware of such problems as down syndrome. Whether they contemplate and consider it publicly or privately is totally dependent on the person, but i would say 95% of people consider this. There was just something simply a little different about this little girl.

Now I know this may be a harsh comparison, but I have wondered it for some time. With my Mormon upbringing, where homosexuality is so wrong, if it one day becomes possible to test for homosexuality, would pregnancies be terminated all the time?
Many people in the Mormon church shudder at the thought of one of their children turning out to be gay. If it were possible to test for such things ahead of time, would they terminate pregnancies, knowing the full challenges they would face later down the line? What would you do? and since this is kinda my blog... :P If it were possible what would have my family done? Do people really have that big of a problem with anothers sexuality that they would rather have them not be born than deal with it later in life? Or would they just raise you and ask you to walk away to clear their conscious? What do you think? What would you do? or if you wouldn't do anything different, how would you counsel another who is not so open minded as you?
D